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Your Cougar looks awesome! Too bad the windows broke...Your event sounds like a lot of fun. My Mustang is almost done...I've already started reupholstering the seats in anticipation of getting the car home from the shop.

Nice place.
I should dump something from Owners Locker, we have 2 of them now and Vinny would not mind another.
MMM, We love 1900 PF.
So jealous about V&As.
Nice job on the before and after.
Sorry the meeting went bad.
All caught up.

Thanks for the info on car. I googled that model and loving it! How amazing. Hopefully when you get her back on the road she can enjoy your next road trip.

Your hotel choice sounds very well selected. I love those places where it's in the middle of stores you can buy things you need. When we did our driving tour of California we stayed in hotels like that. It was just ideal! One of our bucket list items is to hire an RV and see more of Cali we love it. We fell for Carmel by Sea. One of our favourite memories of all the things we did was a free tour of the Jelly Belly factory in Fairfield. Such fun! I love Jelly beans

Lovely State you live in. So diverse from Lake Tahoe which was divine to San Fran which was amazing. Oh I want to go back now! Enjoy the car show!

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This is a specific trip where everyone brings their classic cars, so we probably won't try to take her on a road trip until there is another Car Club event. We don't travel light, so we sort of need the SUV! LOL!

An RV tour of CA would be fun. I love driving through California, it's a nice state to live in.

Your Cougar looks awesome! Too bad the windows broke...Your event sounds like a lot of fun. My Mustang is almost done...I've already started reupholstering the seats in anticipation of getting the car home from the shop.

Have a great weekend!

Jill in CO

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I saw the photos of the seats. That's impressive that you are doing it yourself. We had ours done for the Cougar. Once the window is fixed, we should be able to drive her around town for a bit. I wish we had caught the problem sooner, but it was nice to have the SUV and be able to bring a lot of crap!

Nice place.
I should dump something from Owners Locker, we have 2 of them now and Vinny would not mind another.
MMM, We love 1900 PF.
So jealous about V&As.
Nice job on the before and after.
Sorry the meeting went bad.
All caught up.

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Wow! Two OLs! We could probably fill them up too! You two need to go to V&A's sometime. It's tough to stay caught up. I just caught up on yours too!

So, here we are in beautiful San Luis Obispo. Dont think I am taking time out of what could be spent having fun to write this report for you. Although I suppose instead of sitting on my butt at the computer I could be walking laps around the hallway of the hotel. Im just killing time while Fran takes care of important business before we head out for a fun filled day. The car club event that we are here for really doesnt start until tomorrow although this evening at the hotel during Happy Hour when the free drinks start, Im sure well meet and mingle with plenty of the other folks in the club. We are new to this group, so we dont know a lot of the folks yet, but were trying!

Anyways, we didnt get packed up and out of the house until 5:15 yesterday. For those who know California Geography, or actually those who dont. Long Beach is about 35 miles south of Downtown Los Angeles. Los Angeles stretches for many miles across the basin. You could literally drive for almost two hours and still be considered in Los Angeles. Especially at the pace that the traffic was going yesterday.

Fran started out driving, but it was clear that she was drowsing off due to the bumper to bumper traffic. In our 15+ years, I have learned that I am the better in traffic driver. She is the better out on the open road, get us there at 80 mph driver. So we switched in the heart of LA in a not so good part of town, but made the switch quickly and avoided any drive by shootings.

I drove for the better part of an hour and a half until we were well out of LA almost to Ventura County. We made a quick stop for bottled water and some other goodies and were back on the road. By this time the sun was setting and we still had at least 100+ miles ahead of us. We listened to a book on CD to help pass the time since the scenery was no longer visible.

Around 9:30 we decided that we better stop for dinner otherwise nothing would be open any farther down the road. Can anyone guess where we stopped?

Here is another hint, Fran got a bowl of this.

I got a salad

She ordered a Monte Cristo. It wasnt as good as the ones at Disneyland, but it was still pretty good.

I got the Buffalo Wings. I have never had them bathing in the Hot Sauce. Needless to say they were sort of weird, but still tasted OK. I took half of them for leftovers.

Then we were back on our way again. We pulled into the parking lot around 11:30PM. We checked in and I got our stuff upstairs while Fran parked the car. We are staying at the Embassy Suites (which I love), we get two rooms, breakfast and cocktails for Happy Hour, all included! Its a good thing that we travel light!

Comfy bed!

Blurry armoire

Parking Lot View

Fran is a Gold Hilton Honors member, so they always leave us goodies in the room when we stay.

I got our formal wear hung up and our necessary items for the evening out of the suitcases and we got settled for the night. I think it was 2AM before I was actually ready to fall asleep. Long day. Well see what happens for the next day!

The green pea soup place.. I forget the name and am too lazy to google the name, you can give it to me...

So how was the soup?

I love Hilton Hotels you know exactly what you are getting, I love the brand standard and sometimes we are rewarded with extras. I think we have been Diamond for 4 or 5 years now and the upgrades are amazing!

Nice hotel!!! I don't mind members of the Hilton brand but prefer not to stay in a Hilton on vacay as that's where work always sends me. I actually prefer the Hilton Express (or whatever it's called) to regular Hiltons.

I love Embassy Suites and Extended Stay Deluxe a great value for the money and the ability to stretch out I was hoping you would start posting on this trip can't wait to see the cars & you both in formal wear

Oh love Embassy suites! That was one if our fav on our road trips. Very comfy beds! Nice being a valued customer

Hope you managed to meet lots of nice like minded people in your new group. How exciting! Maybe you will see some familiar faces at your lovely breakfast this morning and later on at the car show. Are you hoping to see any particular models that are rare to admire? What would be each of your dream cars if money were no object?

Have fun! Hope you slept well on those comfy beds and lovely dinner. Spilt pea soup + comfy beds = princess Fran and Alison and the Pea.

The green pea soup place.. I forget the name and am too lazy to google the name, you can give it to me...

So how was the soup?

I love Hilton Hotels you know exactly what you are getting, I love the brand standard and sometimes we are rewarded with extras. I think we have been Diamond for 4 or 5 years now and the upgrades are amazing!

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We try to stay Hilton if at all convenient. Like you said nice perks. I actually do not like peas. I tried the soup for the first time and it wasn't bad, but I still didn't care for it. I thought it had overtones of dirt in the flavor.

Nice hotel!!! I don't mind members of the Hilton brand but prefer not to stay in a Hilton on vacay as that's where work always sends me. I actually prefer the Hilton Express (or whatever it's called) to regular Hiltons.

Except for the bar.

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Our favorites are the Embassy Suites and Homewood Suites (with the kitchens). Both feature a living room and bedroom. I like that, because right now I'm on the computer in the living room while Fran is still asleep in the bedroom.

I love Embassy Suites and Extended Stay Deluxe a great value for the money and the ability to stretch out I was hoping you would start posting on this trip can't wait to see the cars & you both in formal wear

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The formal wear will probably be once we get home since that's the last night. Turns out nothing is going on Sunday, so we are looking to check out then instead of Monday. We miss the kitties.

Oh love Embassy suites! That was one if our fav on our road trips. Very comfy beds! Nice being a valued customer

Hope you managed to meet lots of nice like minded people in your new group. How exciting! Maybe you will see some familiar faces at your lovely breakfast this morning and later on at the car show. Are you hoping to see any particular models that are rare to admire? What would be each of your dream cars if money were no object?

Have fun! Hope you slept well on those comfy beds and lovely dinner. Spilt pea soup + comfy beds = princess Fran and Alison and the Pea.

Paula x

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It's nice that this is the hotel of choice for the event. Well, I'll be back to post on how many people we met, but that might be a while. We have a somewhat full day today. Trying to get Fran to breakfast before the crowds hit.

I didnt seem to need much sleep Wednesday night because by 6AM Thursday I was wide awake. I checked my phone and a few DIS threads and couldnt seem to go back to sleep. Around 7:30, I laid back down, pulled the covers over my head and was able to get another 45 minutes or so of sleep, but I was pretty hungry. We had decided to go down to breakfast at 8:30.

With the way that we move, it was 9:00 before we actually left the room. Bad choice. Everyone else in the hotel was down there too. Tons of kids, and not necessarily families, like unsupervised teenagers taking up table after table. The line for the omelets looked like it was probably 20 minutes long, and I didnt want to wait THAT long. They had bacon, eggs, potatoes, and pancakes on the buffet along with some fruit, breads and cereals. I decided that we would come down earlier in the next couple days before it got so busy, and I could have some eggs made to order then. For now I just was happy with this.

I didnt get any pictures of Frans breakfast, but I know she had bacon. Why wouldnt she? I know she had pancakes because she asked me to get her more syrup and she had a bowl of watermelon because I got that for her too. We finished up breakfast at 9:30 and noticed them promptly cleaning up the fruit from the buffet. I noticed that folks were still waiting in line for the omelets even after 9:30, so its good to know they will keep cooking after the official breakfast is over.

Fran wanted to go back to the room and lay down for a little, so I started to work on my mini TR. I decided to go back out and take some photos of the atrium and the area where you have breakfast and Happy Hour.

Its got this nice open ceiling that lets in tons of light.

This fountain may be a nice place to enjoy a cocktail tonight!

I worked on the TR a little bit and decided that while she sleeps I could walk over to the Ralphs in the shopping center and get some of the things on our list to get today. I spent about half an hour briskly walking there and back and about 10 minutes walking at a slow pace in the store (Jenny you know what that means!) She still wanted to rest so I updated the TR, and hopefully the pain pill that she just took will have kicked in and we will go out and find someplace to enjoy lunch. She mentioned Monterey, but I thought 146 miles each was a little far. Perhaps we might go to Morro Bay, thats a tad bit closer. We shall see. I will be back to update!

Shortly before noon, Fran was feeling refreshed and ready to attack the world. We decided on Morro Bay and both of us set to our phones to look up shopping and restaurant locations with good reviews. Soon we were on our way to the coast. All along the road to Morro Bay there were these giant out croppings. I cant remember the geological explanation, but it involves plate tectonics, and they form a line all the way out to Morro Rock.

Soon we reached the town and the main spectacle was in view.

Since most of the restaurants that interested us were on the Embarcadero, we headed down towards the waterfront. These two items headed for the Morro Bay Maritime Museum were out on display in a parking lot.

Then we headed out to the rock.

I had a nice view of the beach, and got out of the car to take some pictures.

I remembered PIOs fascination with Johnathan Livingston Seagull and found my own specimen posing nicely.

Fran pointed out this little chipmunk pretending to be a rock. It turns out that as soon as I saw him, I started to see others all over the place amonst the rocks. They were very cute and scrambling to and fro.

I took a few more shots of the coastline before we started over to the other side of the rock.

Notice all the birds clustered all over the rocks here.

Some close up shots as we drove to the other side of the rock.

As we came around the other side of the rock, we saw this fishing boat returning to dock. Not sure if they were tossing over the remnants of cleaning their fish or what, but they sure had a following of seagulls and pelicans.

There were plenty of places to stop and just watch the scenery. Morro Bay has a huge power plant, so thats what you see off on the right hand side of the picture.

Heres a couple shots looking back at the town.

Then all of a sudden we spied some sea otters. This guy was really active.

The rest are the little lumps that you see in the foreground. At first I was concerned that they werent moving, but after watching for a while, there were twitches and slight movements from the lumps. They were just fast asleep.

On our way back to the car, Fran insisted that we stop into the Cinnamon Roll/Chocolate store. There was a whole lot of potentially dangerous choices!

Fran bought two cinnamon rolls and a pecan roll, claiming we could have them for dinner tonight. I got a caramel patty and some milk chocolate covered honey comb. That latter didnt even last until we got to the gas station. In fact there was a Hawaiian shirt store that Fran had me run into and check on shirts on the way out of town, and I was finished with it by then! We filled up the gas tank and then we headed back to the hotel to get ready for the evenings festivities.